


Momrail Dolorosa

by orphan_account



Category: Homestuck
Genre: Gen, Pale Romance | Moirallegiance
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-02-27
Updated: 2013-02-27
Packaged: 2017-12-03 20:23:41
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,157
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/702283
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/orphan_account/pseuds/orphan_account
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>A drabble about the Dolorosa finding the Signless, stipulating an eventual pale romance between the two, originally written August 2011.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Momrail Dolorosa

Everyone has an important job to do.

She had abandoned hers.

She had been chosen at her conception to be one of the rare, important few who ensured the survival and continuation of her people. So crucial were she and her like that they were cloistered underground, protected from the dangers of the surface world and the violence and passions of other trolls. Once, and only once, she had seen the sky—a fading gilt tapestry—when she had escaped her lusus’s watchful eyes when she was small. She should have been asleep then, just as she should have been asleep the second time. She couldn’t always sleep during the day; it seemed that something was calling her, the siren song of a deadly land, and she imagined sometimes that there was someone out there, too, waiting for her. Perhaps sinister, perhaps pitiful, but always beautiful in her mind’s eye. Not that she ever truly thought of leaving—she had an important job to do. Her insomnia just meant she could do more for the mother grub at odd hours.

But then, one late, late dawn when she was nine sweeps of age, the sky fell. Perhaps she had underestimated her own destiny.

There was a loud, crackling rumble, like nothing she had ever heard before, and while her caste-mates had already gone to sopor, she went running to check on the mother grub, who was dozing peacefully—alarm was not her job. One of the elder jadebloods appeared soon after, hand on the hilt of his blade, ready to protect the mother grub from unknown threats. Seeing that others were slow to rouse, he ordered the younger jadeblood to investigate the loud event and report back to him. It seemed to have come from one of the supply tunnels, which twisted for miles underground before surfacing at a destination she could barely have guessed at.

She wound her way into the tunnel and found sky and rubble. Above, stately pink clouds had smothered all points of light. Her breath caught and she marveled at a world that seemed like it should blind her. The trance was broken when a clump of dirt and rock clattered down next to her. She began climbing over the rubble to see more, and perhaps discern what had caused this. There was something small and vibrant red, like the blood of beasts. Perhaps something dead and well-mangled. When she came closer, it moved—and chirruped.

She picked the small grub up gently and examined it as it chirped and rubbed its face against her thumb. She found nothing but questions: How had a grub wandered so far from the hatching caverns without anyone noticing? What blood color was this grub supposed to have? Was this what maroon grubs looked like in daylight? As she carried it back into comforting shadows, she was sure that didn’t explain it. Not only was this grub a runt, so small it would never have made it out of the caverns, it was also a mutant, something that simply didn’t exist. It chirped and trilled at her, dissolving her thoughts. Its stubby legs scrabbled against her skin in a delighted wiggle. It was the most pitiful thing she had ever seen.

The infant fell asleep on her shoulder before long, as she gazed at the brightening clouds above them. It was much more content than it should have been in the arms of a grown troll. It clearly had no instincts for self preservation.

Others would be sent soon. When they saw the wiggler, they would demand it culled immediately; no lusus would take it, so it was already doomed. It would be a waste of a protein chute. They would slice it in half right there beside the settling rubble, and dump its parts and mutant blood in the caverns for better grubs to eat. 

She could not bear the thought.

She clutched the wiggler to her chest and absconded across the crater and into the depths of the tunnel.

The further into the tunnel she ran, the darker it became, until she had to slow to a careful, brisk walk. She had never told anyone, and probably never would, but her eyesight was not as good as most trolls’; she needed more light than most did to see. She had only illusive spots of color cast by luminiscent fungi to help guide her way. By the time the wriggler stirred, any troll would have needed a lantern.

“Please remain silent,” she told the grub. If she was lucky, they would presume her devoured by a cave-crushing monster—but the pair of them could not take that chance. The grub whined and wiggled against her, heedless of her request.

“I suspect you are hungry,” she murmured, “but you will just have to be patient. We have a long way to go.” The wiggler slobbered plaintive noises against her neck. “Settle down, please,” she told it. She imagined the drool quickly cooling on her neck would be a pinkish red.

The wiggler found her ear with its teeth, and she yelped. It squeaked happily and gnawed, and she set her own jaw.

“No, little one, I am not food.” She pried it away from her head, carefully rearranging it by touch until its mouth could find only the fabric of her gown. It whimpered and chewed uselessly at it. It hadn’t broken her skin, and it didn’t tear her clothing; its teeth were far too blunt. It was really a hopeless creature.

She held it tight and trod on through the dark.

*

The first time the Dolorosa set foot on the surface, the stars had returned. She emerged from a hole in the ground next to a wide, dusty road, and she stopped, just for a moment, to feel relief and to look up at a sparkling sky she had not seen in many sweeps. The wiggler was asleep again, although his sleep, she could see now, was an unhappy one. His mouth was set in a frown and small tears had dried around his closed eyes. He would need food and water as soon as she could get it for him. Keeping her eye out for any company, she followed the road.

The world was big, she knew so little about it, and, she acknowledged now that they had finally surfaced, she had few options. Her clothes would give her away more easily than her blood as being somewhere she shouldn’t, even if she could effectively hide the wiggler. She wasn’t even sure what she was doing. Did she expect to find the grub a lusus? Lusi were simple beings—she could talk to one for nights, try to convince it, but when it smelled the wiggler’s mutant blood, it would kill it on instinct.

No, she thought, there were only two things to do for now. Feed the child, and stay out of sight.


End file.
